What Do You Vita-mean?
Take your daily vitamin! Be healthy! Get those minerals! Be healthy! Maintain those electrolytes! Be healthy.
So as an active member among a society with a power complex regarding what substances I put into my body… as if an Instagrammer I like to call “fit-so-must-be-legit” blogger is the one who shall experience my bowel movement later…I hear a great deal of advice thrown around. The importance of having micro-nutrients included in one’s diet has been engraved into our heads since youth, yet why? Do we even have any idea why we want vitamin A — yes, “it’s good for you”, but what does that vita-mean?
Vitamins are multi-element, organic compounds that contain carbon. (I want to apologize to any readers who are currently taking organic chemistry — too soon, too soon, I know.) Minerals, on the other hand, are inorganic substances that are single elements such as calcium and zinc.
Okay, I am not here today to blabber on paragraphs of information, for I know that will not improve my ratings whatsoever. I do not really want to become one of those “required” $100 textbooks you rent for a college class, yet never once open the entire semester. Therefore, I have broken off some of the most intriguing pieces of information I had acquired on the subject and have implemented them in the fine art form of bullet points *insert prestige, eminence, and merit*.
* It is nearly impossible to overdose on vitamins and minerals by consumption of food. So do not worry about having too much spinach or carrots — the real issue is when a person takes supplements. A single pill alone might contain more than the upper limit for the day. Due to what is being taken, toxicity can vary from barely noticeable symptoms to VERY noticeable symptoms. By overdoing supplements, the micro-nutrients it holds will either hurt your body, be absorbed and then urinated out or it will never be absorbed, to begin with.
*You can overdose on vitamin A by eating food, though. No, not from the sweet potatoes you had with dinner or mangoes blended in your smoothie. Instead from an item, I am sure everyone has at least once a week…polar bear liver! That was sarcasm in case you did not pick up on it. Polar bear livers are toxic since they can contain up to 8,000,000 International Units of vitamin A. In other words, if you take anything from this article, please, if you are ever stranded in the arctics and deprived of food, do not gorge on the polar bear liver. The outcome is not a pretty one; I will leave it at that.
*You do not get energy from vitamins and minerals. They are a ginormous zero calories. Congratulations to all of the calorie counters reading this! It is one less thing to be worried about. I mean as an undergraduate exercise science major, I am not a doctor (yet), but in my opinion, a person should not waste their caloric energy and brain power on these numbers anyways. However, the more you know, the more you know, so enjoy just knowing that fun fact of mine.
*Drink your orange juice if you would like some vitamin C! We have all heard it. Do not get me wrong, orange juice is quite nutritious, but guess what has more vitamin C in it and does not receive enough recognition? Bell peppers! Start drinking a glass of bell pepper juice with your breakfast every morning… it is what all of the health experts claim to be doing. Well, maybe not verbally claiming, but hey, that is a logical theory of mine. Broccoli, strawberries, kale, pineapple, and kiwi have more than an orange, as well. No offense to all you soccer players out there who devour them during halftime. One last public service announcement regarding orange juice: vitamin C is light sensitive, thus those clear bottles they are sold in can result in the quick destroying due to exposure.
*Electrolytes are a fancy schmancy way of saying “particles with an electrical charge”, and to the horror of many diet fanatics, the two most abundant in our body are the minerals sodium and chloride. Yes, when you chug a sports drink with electrolytes, such as Gatorade, you are consuming salt. Your body needs it to function, for your heart to beat, and for the most basic to the most intricate processes, thus this fear of salt in the media is absolutely ridiculous. Speaking of word choice, vitamin D is technically a steroid. Furthermore, it is absorbed via sunlight but then requires cholesterol to synthesize it. First of all, if milk cartons were labeled “steroid D”, most parents would hesitate to purchase it due to the stereotypes associated with the term. Secondly, cholesterol is not something to be afraid of. It is essential to one’s survival; yes, an excess of anything is not good, but a deficiency is just as bad.
Well, these might be somewhat broad and general facts, but I realize most people do not have the time to read an entire textbook every morning on their drive to work. I recommend continuing to research any of these topics you find yourself interested in, for there is a great deal of false information regarding not only macro-nutrients but also micro-nutrients. As I said before, the more you know, the more you know. If you do not understand what that vita-MEANS, then look it up. You might click a link that pulls up a bullet point list. Maybe.
